RugbyRebels

Raggs wrote:OK, so the RodneyRegis numbers doesn't include lineouts. Willis took two lineouts, including one at the tail right near the end of the game, he also got up to put serious pressure and made a mess of one of the Quins lineouts (not a steal though). I am not including these.

Willis was part of 48 rucks. That gives him a total of 82 positive interactions. Please note the list from the Aus game. Launch and Robshaw were the highest that played the whole game with 45 and 46 respectively (that's their rucks hit, and everything else). Itoje had the highest rate at 6.2 every 10 minutes. Willis was basically 10 for every 10. 1 positive interaction every minute of the game. This was in a game where every player would have had to have covered extra distance to make up for the man down. The man is an absolute machine.

There were 21 attacking rucks, and 27 defensive. I only caught him ruck inspecting twice (one may be excused if he thought the box kick was coming), the other times I felt he was at least serving some purpose.

He successfully cleaned up 3 loose and bouncing balls, one from a lineout he slid in, grabbed it, got to his feet in one smooth movement, and proceeded to beat the first defender and carry another 5 yards with 2/3 defenders on him.

He caught one of Wasps short restarts from Cips, which is a very handy skill as well.

In terms of an Eddie type 7, not too many big clearouts on attack, but then it mostly wasn't required, and I didn't see him fail on one. There was one blindside break from the scrum, where Wallace was over the ball and Willis cleared him out cleanly, definitely capable of big clearouts. Should he have been there first? Maybe, but he could have been expecting Thompson to offload or pass before going to ground. Did potentially seem a little slow of the scrum later in the game, but it may be he's been told to shove as the blindside, rather than look to break.

A few times he didn't get given a ruck mark, as he was supporting the carrier through, and just came off his feet as they both went down, still providing a useful service though.

When the ball comes to where he is, he definitely seems to be a preferred carrier, so won't be clearing out as much.

First successful turnover 33.40 with a counter ruck, Matthews then throws it up off the ground and is penalised. Sinckler throws the ball at Willis' face, Willis reacts fast enough to catch it (does lots of crazy catch practice with Hask judging from the videos!), Ward complains he played the 9 (nope, the 9 just got squashed by Quins own man), Sinkler then starts F-ing and blinding, gets sent back 10.

2nd turnover, steals the ball at 38.45, killing a promising Quins attack. 3 Quins on him, enormous strength shown.

3rd turnover, Guy Thompson asks if they can counter ruck, Barnes says yes, Willis obliges.

4th turnover 54.17 He'd seriously slowed good attacking ball a few phases earlier, and now turnsover 5m from the tryline. And it's not that he's got lightweights trying to clear him, Sinkler hits him, Ward has a go, Chisholm throws in a shoulder too. He took a massive hit from Matthews in that earlier slow down too.

5th turnover 73.45. Tested the previous ruck but gave it up, got this one.

75m and Willis is still making powerful carries.

81.50 Slows Quins right down after they took a quick tap, gives our defence a chance to organise.

Overall, bloody hell. Compared to the Aus ruck marks and interactions, Willis is a mile ahead, same is true of the previous international game I did. I also did a Wasps game from a while back, where Guy Thompson was massively busy, hitting 35 rucks and a ton of other stuff, and still only got to 64 total interactions. OK, I didn't break down the actual score of each ruck for Willis, as with the changes, it's going to be lower due to less hits being required, but 5 turnovers is 25 points on it's own. He slowed ball enough to score probably another 12 points at least from failed steals, and had the big hit on Wallace, so take 10 rucks away from 48, and even if the rest are just 1 pointers (which they aren't, guard is 2 and will makeup a good number of those), he still scores 79 ruck marks absolute minimum. More likely to be pushing the 100 mark would be my guess.

Asides:

I know Hughes gets a lot of stick here, but he knows the laws and adaptations. Very late in the game Matthews moves the ball with his hands, and Hughes yells he's moved it and goes for him. Barnes penalises him, Hughes tells him he moved it, Barnes says he has to lift it (but that's not true as of this weekend, moving it with the hands is enough). He's generally been smart with the no offside line when no ruck (not that it applies anymore), and the tackled, release, stand and run again. Where he lets himself down, including this Matthews one, is he doesn't consider what is likely to happen. He's sure he's right (and he often is), but doesn't think about how the ref is likely to react.

That tackle from Alofa on Bassett is nasty, they replay it, but don't realise that it's well after the whistle on the replay, Alofa doesn't even have hold of Bassett when the whistle goes.

Digby wrote:Quins in fairness were hilarious across the board. There's really just nothing to hang your hat on after a performance like that, indeed it's so bad I'd suggest they ignore it as an outlier as regards their performance

Mikey Brown wrote:

Digby wrote:Quins in fairness were hilarious across the board. There's really just nothing to hang your hat on after a performance like that, indeed it's so bad I'd suggest they ignore it as an outlier as regards their performance

Weird. That's what I've been doing when we win.

fivepointer wrote:Eastmond gets a 6 week ban for his high and dangerous tackles. Cant say i have any sympathy. They were bad ones - particularly the one on Smith.

Digby wrote:

fivepointer wrote:Eastmond gets a 6 week ban for his high and dangerous tackles. Cant say i have any sympathy. They were bad ones - particularly the one on Smith.

Indeed, he lost the plot out there.

Digby wrote:If we were just coming up to Christmas I'd assume Eastmond wanted time off over the festive period to get on the beers. As is does he perchance have a wedding in Barbados he's hoping the club will now allow him to attend or similar?

There's not being as professional as one would like, and then there's off the charts being unprofessional. I don't know if Wasps can dock him wages, but he bloody well would deserve it if they can and do.

Banquo wrote:

Digby wrote:If we were just coming up to Christmas I'd assume Eastmond wanted time off over the festive period to get on the beers. As is does he perchance have a wedding in Barbados he's hoping the club will now allow him to attend or similar?

There's not being as professional as one would like, and then there's off the charts being unprofessional. I don't know if Wasps can dock him wages, but he bloody well would deserve it if they can and do.

seems a bit out of character too, wonder if he's been told he's not getting a new contract

Raggs wrote:His technique has always been aggressive with big shots that I recall, targeting chest high, when flying in with lack of control against Chisholm, he went too high, and against someone of a similiarish height, who was already quite low, it was just deadly. He needs to adapt.

Raggs wrote:His technique has always been aggressive with big shots that I recall, targeting chest high, when flying in with lack of control against Chisholm, he went too high, and against someone of a similiarish height, who was already quite low, it was just deadly. He needs to adapt.

Banquo wrote:

Raggs wrote:His technique has always been aggressive with big shots that I recall, targeting chest high, when flying in with lack of control against Chisholm, he went too high, and against someone of a similiarish height, who was already quite low, it was just deadly. He needs to adapt.

there's aggressive and there's reckless

Digby wrote:

Banquo wrote:

Digby wrote:If we were just coming up to Christmas I'd assume Eastmond wanted time off over the festive period to get on the beers. As is does he perchance have a wedding in Barbados he's hoping the club will now allow him to attend or similar?

There's not being as professional as one would like, and then there's off the charts being unprofessional. I don't know if Wasps can dock him wages, but he bloody well would deserve it if they can and do.

seems a bit out of character too, wonder if he's been told he's not getting a new contract

Indeed. It's very possible he'd had some bad news, whether contract or personal, and then one would have to wonder did Dai know, and was the right call made to even select him when he's proceeded to leave even close to acceptable behaviour on a distant horizon

I would say I was impressed with De Jongh after Eastmond got his marching orders, but then one has to come back to just how bad Quins were

Raggs wrote:

Banquo wrote:

Raggs wrote:His technique has always been aggressive with big shots that I recall, targeting chest high, when flying in with lack of control against Chisholm, he went too high, and against someone of a similiarish height, who was already quite low, it was just deadly. He needs to adapt.

there's aggressive and there's reckless

Agreed, and he was reckless with his aggressive technique. In fact, given the changes around high tackles, his aggressive technique in general is now reckless in all cases.

I R Geech wrote:Would the high hits be a hangover from his league days as mush as compensation for his relative size? Either way, he's far from being a thick or reckless player usually.

Raggs wrote:

With better music Digby.